I thought for a detour tonight I would take a walk by the several bookshelves in my living room and flag seven books on them that I should really read, but for whatever reason, have not.

Here they are, in no significant order, and since this is a cursory survey, if I looked harder, I would probably find others that would change my list in a week.

1. The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant

Well, technically, this an 11-volume set of books, but I bought it as a gift to myself at a used bookstore in Berkeley, CA, when I had graduated from seminary in 1994 and was getting ready to move on in life. I’ve carted this set around for years, telling myself I would read all of these volumes one day. And I want to read them one day. And that one day needs to be sooner than later. It really does. But I won’t actually read all 11 books in one day, no.

2. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I have saw the film adaptation of this once long ago, but I have never read the book. But several Christmases ago, my niece Emily gave a copy of this to me, and knowing the reputation this books has, I really need to take time to read it.

3. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

I was so intoxicated with the writing of Hemingway as a college student. I remember ditching a few history classes so I could just sit by the UNM duck pond and read in several of his books instead. It has been years since I have read anything by him, but to end the year last month, I watched the PBS series by Ken Burns on Hemingway’s life and legacy, and as someone interested in good storytelling, the show rekindled my desire to read Hemingway’s short stories and to re-experience the thrill I once knew in reading his writing. I picked up a used copy of the collection for pretty cheap after completing the Burns series. Now, like many of the books on these shelves, I need to just read it.

4. House of Rain by Craig Childs

As a native New Mexican heavily interested in the history of the U.S. Southwest, I am familiar with the fact that early people groups lived in this land long before I got here- and long before the European settlers arrived, and before the Spaniards tried to settle in it, and even before the Pueblo and Plains Indians made their homes in this region. Childs looks at the history we have accrued of the Ancestral Puebloans who dwelled in the Southwest in American Prehistory. And, on a personal level, my folks bought me this book at a visitor center when we were out visiting a historical park. So, again, it is a book I need to read.

5. Making Japan’s National Game by Blair Williams

In a moment of curiosity, I came across this book and ordered it online to try and get some answers about how baseball found its way to Japan, and became a cultural centerpiece in that country. The book appears to be a bit academic, judging by the summary blurb on its back cover, but hey- I want to know what those guys over there think of this game I love.

6. In Search of Dominguez & Escalante by Greg Mac Gregor and Siegfried Halus

In conjunction with my interests in Spanish Colonial history and landscape photography in the Southwest, I picked up this book when a history website I was enjoying recommended it. This book is a pictoral visitation of places along the way that a 1776 Spanish expedition (the Rivera Expedition) took, trying to find a route to the new Spanish settlement in Monterrey (CA) from Mexico City via the Camino Real (and Santa Fe). Fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante ended up wandering across southern Utah before detours and weather drove them back through northern Arizona to return to Santa Fe. Today, the Dominguez-Escalante Trail winds near the Utah-Arizona border and touches Hopi and Zuni places, and I expect the contents of this book will excite me both for the history and the photography within it.

7. Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder

I have actually had this book since 2018, and I started reading it at that time- but then I quickly decided to stop reading it after the first chapter because I told myself I needed to apply its practical principles as I read it to a writing project. And so The Cat has sat on top of a bookshelf, waiting to be picked up again for three year, which, if it would happen, would mean I was seriously taking on that writing project finally. I would like to still like to do that, if I could just get focused and make myself do it. If I ever finish this book, it’ll mean I finished that project.